Whispers

  Outside the sun was just beginning to chase away the night. The new dawn was fresh, evidence of the storm visible in the puddles and litter of branches in the yard, but the air smelled clean, and the mist that had settled over the lake began to rise.

  Claire entered the stables, threw a bridle over a surprised Marty’s head, and led him through a series of paddocks before opening a final gate and, with a running start, hopped onto his bare back.

  He sidestepped just a bit, then once she was astride and pressing her knees into his ribs, the horse responded, loping up the familiar trail, splashing through puddles, jumping over a few fallen logs.

  Towering stands of old growth timber spread lacy needled branches overhead, allowing little of the gray light of dawn to pierce the forest floor.

  “Come on, come on,” she urged, as the little paint edged ever upward, past an outcropping of clay-colored rock to the crest of the ridge, the sacred, haunted spot of the Native Americans—the place where Kane had camped before.

  She licked her lips nervously as the horse rounded a bend in the trail, her eyes scanning the still-dark timbers.

  Her heart beat a sharp cadence of anticipation as she reached the clearing and spied him leaning against the mossand fungi-covered bark of a tree. A shadow of a beard darkened his chin, his hair was wild and uncombed, his leather jacket battered, his Levi’s threadbare and sun-bleached. A cigarette burned slowly between his fingers.

  Tears of relief burned in her eyes as she slowed her mount.

  A dying campfire sent up a smoldering curl of smoke, and a tarp had been strung between two trees to protect his motorcycle and bedroll.

  “Lookin’ for me?” he drawled. His blade-thin lips barely moved, and his eyes were the intense shade of aged whiskey she remembered. Her heart cracked. “Yes.”

  “Thought you might be, so I waited.” He tossed his cigarette into the fire and started toward her. She was off the horse in an instant as she raced over the uneven ground and flung herself into his arms. Tears rolled down her cheeks, and all she wanted to do was hold on to him. To cling to him forever and never let go.

  His arms surrounded her, giving her a warm haven, silently promising her that everything would be all right. “I heard about Taggert.”

  She let out a long, pained cry and felt the world tilt all over again. “Oh, God, Kane, it’s my fault.”

  He stiffened. “Yours?”

  “I broke off the engagement. Gave him back his ring.” She was sobbing now, the words rushing out of her like water spilling through a broken dam. “Down at the marina. He was drinking on the sailboat and . . . and I left him.”

  “Shh.” He kissed her crown and the scents of smoke, leather, and musk surrounded her in a comforting mist. “It’s not your fault.”

  “But he was upset and . . . and . . . I had the night watchman look in on him . . . but . . .”

  “But nothing.” Taking her hand, he led her to the tent and sat beneath the sodden tarp on the dry ground. Still he held her, his arms offering support as she leaned against him. “It’s gonna be all right.”

  “How? He’s dead, Kane. Dead!” Broken sobs escaped from her throat as she pounded feebly on his chest.

  “And you’re alive. Don’t beat yourself up over it, Princess.”

  “Don’t call me—”

  “All right. Hang in there. I’m here, Claire. You knew I’d be here waiting for you, didn’t you?”

  Of course she did. That’s why she’d come. Guilt trod eagerly over her bare soul. “I—just—didn’t love him enough.” Sniffing loudly, she pulled back to look into Kane’s eyes. “Because of you.”

  “It’s not your fault.” He shifted his gaze to her lips, and she knew they had to be swollen, her eyes were red and wet, her skin mottled. “You did nothing wrong, Claire. Nothing.” Staring at her, he pulled her close again and his lips found hers. No longer gentle, he kissed her with a pent-up passion and heat she’d never felt before. Hard, eager lips demanded more. He wrapped those strong arms around her until she couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think, and the pain slowly faded away to be replaced by desire, a slow deep throb that pulsed deep within her. His tongue rimmed her lips, and she opened to him, body and soul, knowing that he would soon be gone, and throwing caution to the wind.

  Somewhere in the back of her mind Claire knew that kissing him was wrong, that she was too emotionally drained to make the right kind of decisions, but she didn’t care. He was warm and comforting, his hands, as they touched her, hard and callused, the heat uncoiling deep within her, moist and wanting.

  His fingers found the hem of her sweatshirt and touched her back, tracing the curve of her spine, sending desire racing through her blood, numbing the sorrow and guilt that were just beneath the surface of her consciousness.

  With a groan, he discovered she wore no bra, and his hands moved forward to caress both her breasts as his legs wound through hers and they were lying together on the bedroll. She felt the hardness straining against his fly, the pressure of his erection against the V of her legs through denim and cotton.

  Lifting the sweatshirt over her head, he stared at her breasts and then moved his gaze upward, his eyes dark with desire, a muscle jumping near his temple.

  “You’re more beautiful than . . . than . . .” He pulled her breasts together and rubbed her nipples with his thumbs. Passion glided through her blood. Hot. Wild. Uncaring. She moaned as he kissed her on the lips, then moved downward, his tongue circling the hollow of her throat and the tight skin over her sternum before finding one of her breasts and nipping gently.

  “Kane,” she cried, bucking upward, and his hands cupped her buttocks, fingers hard and eager. “Kane . . .”

  The trees overhead began to spin and damp heat swirled in counterpoint deep in her most feminine of places. His beard was rough, his tongue wet, his hands firm. Fingers dug into the muscles of her rear as he straddled her, his erection solid beneath his jeans, the ache between her legs pulsing with want.

  This is wrong! You don’t love him. You don’t even know him. Think, Claire, he’s using you! a voice deep in the back of her mind screamed, but she didn’t care. Wouldn’t listen. Swept on a current of passion, she reached up and skimmed his jacket from his shoulders, then worked at his T-shirt.

  He yanked the worn cotton over his head, and, as the sunlight blazed over the eastern ridge of mountains, she watched the sinewy muscles of his chest flex as she touched him. “You’re playin’ with fire, darlin’,” he warned, but she didn’t stop and watched in fascination as he trembled when the tip of her fingertip caressed his flat nipple. “Claire . . . don’t stop . . . I can’t—” His voice was rough. “Do you know what you do to me?”

  “What?”

  “Everything,” he admitted, and found the waistband of her jeans. With one quick jerk the waistband and buttons of her fly opened in a series of sharp pops. Practiced hands skimmed the denim over her hips.

  “Claire,” he said, kissing her abdomen, his warm moist breath circling her navel. “Claire . . . tell me . . . if this isn’t what you want.”

  “I want you.”

  “You’ll regret it later.”

  “No—” Was he going to reject her? “I need you.”

  His groan was as primal as the forest. “Are you sure?”

  “Yes . . . oh, God, yes.”

  Urgent fingers delved inside her panties, pushing aside the soft cotton to touch her intimately, to probe that dark, feminine region now dewy with need.

  She whispered his name over and over again as he lowered himself, sliding the underpants down her legs, kissing her thighs, licking her knees, opening her legs so slowly that she thought she would die with the want of him.

  His breath fanned her curls and desire like a wisp of smoke curled deep inside her. Raw female need, a fire out of control, burned through her blood, and sweat drenched her body.

  “Please,” she cried, as he touched her gently at first, then opening her like a special gift and kissing
her so intimately tears burned behind her eyes.

  “I’ve wanted you forever,” he vowed, the words muffled by the sound of the sea crashing on the rocks below and her own thudding heart.

  He kicked off his jeans as he caressed her and she writhed, wanting more, needing all of him. Eagerly she lifted her hips from the ground. “Kane . . . I . . . oh . . . Oooooh . . .” He placed her knees on his shoulders and delved more deeply. The earth cracked—the trees overhead careened—her soul was flung to the heavens, and she shuddered against him as she convulsed.

  “That’s a girl,” he whispered, his face taunt with slipping self-control. “Lose yourself.” And she did. As if she were riding a spirited rodeo bronco, she gasped and twisted while he pleasured her with his hands and tongue. When at last she was panting, her naked body soaked in sweat, he slid upward and spread her legs with his knees.

  “Wh-what do you want?” she asked, gasping.

  “Just you, Claire. That’s all I’ve always wanted.” And he took her. With a strong thrust and a primal cry, he drove deep between her legs, and though she was certain she was spent, her heart quickened, her breasts filled, and she moved with him easily, catching his rhythm, her fingers digging into his shoulders, her legs wrapped around his hips.

  “Claire, Claire, Claire—” he cried, as he stared down at her and stiffened.

  Her body clenched around him, and she was certain heaven and earth collided as their bodies joined, and he spilled himself into her. “Love me,” he whispered, collapsing against her and crushing her breasts with his weight. “Just love me today.”

  “Because you’ll be gone by tonight.”

  He didn’t answer, just rolled onto his back, so that she was above him as he buried his face between her breasts.

  She stayed with him until nearly noon, making love beneath the sun, whispering together in the sacred forest, forgetting the pain of Harley’s death and knowing with an aching certainty that as the sun set this evening, they would never see each other again.

  Part Three

  The Present

  Twenty-three

  Claire, Claire, Claire.

  Kane gritted his teeth as he sat at his desk, forcing himself to concentrate, but the words on the monitor blurred and Claire’s face, haunted and beautiful, burned into his brain. No matter what he did or how he tried to occupy his mind, she was always there, just beneath the surface of his consciousness, ready to appear to him at any given moment.

  It was a damned curse.

  “You stupid son of a bitch,” he muttered under his breath as he snapped the lid to his computer shut and reached for his bottle of whiskey. His investigation into the night that Harley Taggert had died was stalled, his interest sidetracked. All because of Claire. That same white-hot desire that had gotten into his blood sixteen years ago had been dormant for years, but now was heating up again, distracting him, causing his mind to slip from its single-minded purpose of revenge against Dutch Holland.

  There were reasons Kane hated Dutch, reasons that ran true and deep. Benedict Holland had single-handedly ruined his life. Now the tables were turned. Kane had a chance to give Dutch a taste of his own medicine.

  Except seeing Claire again muddied the waters a bit, clouded his purpose. Christ, he was pathetic. How could one woman turn around his thinking?

  Holding the neck of the bottle with two fingers, he walked through the cabin, now clean and painted, a few pieces of new furniture scattered around to take the place of the broken-down rose-colored sofa and scarred metal table. Frustration gnawed at him. Never before had he not been able to concentrate, to focus on a project. His best traits were his clarity and dogged determination. He’d always known what he wanted, went for it, and, like a dog at a bone, wouldn’t let up until he won the prize.

  Until now.

  Shit!

  With difficulty, he forced his thoughts back to the stormy night sixteen years ago, the night Harley Taggert had lost his life, the night when so many questions had been left unanswered.

  Not that he’d found out much. Kane had spent the past week spinning his wheels. He’d tried to talk to the deputies and witnesses who had seen Harley in his last few hours or been on the scene when Miranda’s car plunged into the inky waters of the lake. But a lot of years had passed, and in that time memories had been lost, perceptions altered, the incident a closed police file collecting dust in some locked cabinet somewhere.

  Sheriff McBain, the officer in charge of the investigation was dead of liver cancer, and the other deputies, none of whom were still with the force, were tight-lipped, their memories fuzzy. They seemed sincere enough, just older and tired, and not much interested in reopening a case that had been ruled an accident. There had been rumors to the effect that the entire investigation had been hushed up, either by Neal Taggert or Dutch Holland and their ability to pay.

  Kane was betting on Dutch.

  He walked back to the old wooden desk he’d bought at a used furniture store. Glancing at his notes, he scowled and cracked his knuckles. Not only had Harley died under suspicious circumstances that night, but Jack Songbird had fallen to his death off the Illahee Cliffs only days before. Hunter Riley, apparently involved with Miranda Holland, had up and disappeared while rumors swirled through town about him knocking up some younger girl and stealing a car. Riley had blown the country, worked for Taggert Logging in Canada somewhere, then disappeared from the face of the earth. Kendall Forsythe, distraught over Harley’s death, had ended up marrying Weston Taggert.

  “Think!” he ordered himself, and flipped through copies of the original police reports. Harley Taggert’s official cause of death was drowning, but he’d either bashed his head on a rock or some other sharp, jagged object after falling off the boat, or someone had clobbered him before pushing his unconscious body overboard.

  When the police had dragged the bay, searching for clues or perhaps a murder weapon, all that had been discovered in the refuse and sludge was a small pistol.

  Was the pistol related to the crime? Or was it just a coincidence that the gun was near his body?

  Kane found a glass on the desk, wiped out the dust with the edge of his shirt, and poured himself a stiff shot. The key to finding out the truth was talking to as many people as possible and checking their stories, playing one against the other.

  He wanted to start with Claire. Not because she was the logical choice, but because he wanted—needed—to see her again. Christ, she was becoming an obsession. Think, Moran, think! Use that blasted brain of yours!

  So much had happened in sixteen years. He’d spent the past few months chasing down leads, trying to find all of the people—or were they suspects?—who were involved.

  Sitting on the edge of his chair, he opened a spiral notebook filled with the names of all the players in the tragedy.

  Neal Taggert, after suffering a near-fatal stroke, had stepped down as the president and CEO of Taggert Industries. Weston was now filling those executive slippers. Daughter Paige took care of her ailing father most of the time.

  As for the elder Taggert son, Weston was married to Kendall Forsythe and had one child, a daughter, Stephanie, who was fifteen. They had married soon after Harley’s death, had no other children, and from all accounts their marriage was as rocky as the Illahee Cliffs. Neither Weston nor Kendall had alibis for the night Harley drowned, but the sheriff’s department had dismissed them as possible suspects. Just as they’d dismissed everyone. As far as the official records were concerned Harley Taggert’s death had been an accident. Nothing more.

  Hank and Ruby Songbird were retired and still living in Chinook, where they ran a mobile home park. They’d moved from their house shortly after Jack’s death, and Ruby had never gotten over her only son’s demise. She’d become a grim, thoughtful woman, who was known to talk in her native tongue at a moment’s notice and who forever gazed out her window to the cliffs where Jack had lost his life.

  Crystal had left Chinook after that summer, finished hig
h school and college, and was now married to a doctor in Seattle. She rarely visited her parents and seemed to have no happy memories of this tiny town on the coast.

  As for the Hollands, they were an interesting lot. Miranda had never married, rarely dated as far as Kane could tell, and was totally devoted to her career, a career that could well be derailed if it were proved that she was somehow involved in Harley’s death.

  Tessa flitted from one apartment in Southern California to the next. She’d supported herself by painting, as her mother had before marrying Dutch, or playing guitar and singing in some less-than-five-star establishments in L.A. A party girl by nature, she’d been picked up for speeding, driving under the influence of intoxicants, and possession of a controlled substance, that substance being cocaine once and marijuana twice. She’d lived with several men who were on the outer fringes of the entertainment business, but, like Miranda, she’d never walked down the aisle and said, “I do.”

  And then there was Claire. Beautiful, lively, enigmatic Claire who had run away from Chinook, married an older man and had two children only to find out that her husband was involved in an affair with his son’s girlfriend. “Bastard,” Kane muttered, tossing back another swallow of whiskey.

  Claire deserved better. Any woman did. He hoped he never laid eyes on Paul St. John.

  Checking his watch, he scowled at the time and wished to God he could avoid the next appointment. But it was necessary if he was ever going to finish his book.

  Morning rain had given way to high clouds that were pierced by rays of sunlight and created a warm mist in the forest. Puddles had collected in the low points of the driveway but were already drying as Kane climbed into his Jeep and felt his old war wound act up again. The last person he wanted to talk to today was Weston Taggert, but he needed Harley’s older brother’s take on the events of sixteen years before.

  In Chinook he parked in the lot across the street from the newest building in town, a two-story office complex with a view of the bay. Ensconced within were the new headquarters of Taggert Industries. Kane passed through a reception area and took the elevator to the second floor, where a desk was positioned in front of double oak doors.